Sir Joseph de Cancy (1213-1283, fl. 1271-1283)

translated by Ji Yingfeng (See Chinese translation)

Born in around 1213, Joseph de Cancy (also known as Joseph de Chauncy, see other alternative names) died in or after 1283 in the Holy Land. He was descended from an Anglo-Norman baronial family from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, mentioned at least as far back as the reign of Stephen. Having joined the Knights Hospitaller at a young age, he must have travelled to their headquarters in Acre and spent several years in the Holy Land, before being appointed as one of the Knights’ international treasurers, remaining in that capacity until about 1271.

By 1273, having risen to become the Order’s grand prior, he was concurrently appointed by King Edward I to serve as his treasurer. It is guessed that the two must have met during Edward’s crusade to the Holy Land. Subsequently, he must have acted on behalf of the King in dealings with the merchants to whom the Crown was indebted. His tenure as the King’s treasurer coincided with the persecution of Jews in England, with or without his direct involvement.

Around 1280 he returned to Acre, whence he maintained a correspondence with the King, informing him of the passage of events in the region. The last trace of him is from 1283, a letter addressed to the King. Therefore it is presumed that he must have passed his final years in the Holy Land.

Although some secondary sources imply the existence of several letters exchanged between Sir Joseph de Cancy and King Edward, the only letters that are formally attested and published are one that he wrote in Norman French, dating from 1281 and dispatched to the King by Sir Joseph from Acre, and the response from the King in 1282.

It is virtually certain that for someone in his position he must have travelled extensively in the Holy Land, the Mediterranean, and perhaps the wider Middle East. However, the putative subject of the 1281 letter is primarily the Second Battle of Homs, fought between the Ilkhan forces under Möngke Timur (Mangou Timour) and those of the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun (Kelaoun), with the participation of the King of Armenia on the Tatar side. The Knights had formed an alliance with the Tatars, but according to Cancy, neither they nor the King of Cyprus or the Prince of Antioch could join the Ilkhan army in time for the battle.

The battle itself has gone down in history as a decisive victory for the Mamluk Sultan, but in Cancy’s account, it was an affair of great bloodshed which came to a draw. He wrote that the Sultan was upheld as the victor only because he was the last to leave the field of battle. The aftermath is also narrated, including the actions of the King of Armenia, who lingered for a while in the region, and the Sultan’s punishment of deserters, murder of ‘fifteen emirs’, and proclamation of a campaign to conquer Armenia,. Cancy was sceptical that he would be able to leave Babylon any time soon after his heavy losses. He mentions an uprising in Baudac (Baghdad) after the news of the Tatar defeat, but this was swiftly put down by Mangou Timour.

It is debated whether the Knights’ partiality to the Tatars led Cancy to portray their defeat as less severe than the present consensus—or whether his account in fact should be more trusted than those found in the Chronicles, originating as it did from a well-informed observer in the region. At the end of the letter, Cancy describes the state of the Levant as poor, urging the King that conditions were therefore rife for a campaign by the English at last to conquer the Holy Land.

In response, the King sent his gratitude for the letter as well as the gifts sent by Cancy, and called upon him to ‘hasten [his] arrival in England’, whereby it may be inferred that Cancy was soon to return there.